You know those “premium” sofas in New Zealand? The ones that are so premium that are also suddenly 50% off? Wonderful news. Until you wonder what the original price was doing. Was I about to pay for a sofa? Or fund the retailer’s retirement? Or their kids going to Harvard? Now imagine that feeling in a procurement room. Well… I found a case that it’s the perfect example. 1976 General Electric was bidding to build part of PAVE PAWS, a US missile warning radar system. Its original price for the...
1 day ago • 2 min read
A train fails its final test. Normally, you fix the train. In Ottawa, they found another option. They changed the test. Just as Margaret Thatcher when she didn’t like her unemployment numbers… The context. In 2019, the city’s new light rail system was approaching opening day. The final trial was supposed to show it could run reliably before passengers got on board. The first three days exposed serious problems. Testing was paused. This is the point where a sensible person says: “Perhaps we...
2 days ago • 1 min read
The meeting had everything. An agenda. A board pack. Senior people. Weather conversations. Possibly biscuits. Coffee and tea. Potable sandwiches during the break. But… What it didn’t have… For years… … was the person appointed to protect the public interest. A chair. Welcome to one of my favourite PPP horror movies. Metronet. The company responsible for upgrading and maintaining large parts of the London Underground under a PPP. The issue is that Transport for London appointed a Partnership...
3 days ago • 1 min read
There you are in front of the guys from the government. Ten projects. Billions in investment. A slide deck so polished it should have its own LinkedIn account. Across the table, an experience contractor smiles. “Very exciting.” And then… back to his mobile phone… He checks the calendar. The team needed to bid your PPP is also wanted on a data centre, an energy project and a private industrial development. Tight schedule. Limited resources. All four projects will have problems. That is one of...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Infrastructure investors used to love a simple story. Capacity. Traffic. Revenue. Return. Easy stuff. A port handles more containers. A road carries more vehicles. And so on… Everyone opens Excel. Everyone smiles. Then the Strait of Hormuz says: Cute model. I love you… Welcome to geopolitics… force majeure or insurability… Now, the spreadsheet needs therapy. If you follow the news that doesn’t talk about Trump, you probably know that the Gulf is now accelerating investment in ports, pipelines...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Kenya may have explained toll-road PPPs better than many rich countries. I know. Uncomfortable. The normal script is different. Rich countries teach. Emerging markets learn. Someone says “capacity building.” Everyone nods. Beautiful. Except sometimes fiscal pressure creates better thinking than comfort. Kenya’s Rironi–Nakuru–Mau Summit Highway is interesting because the government seems to have asked the ugly question that someone needs to answer: Who pays? It’s a beautiful project… you...
6 days ago • 1 min read
A young engineer arrived at his first PPP meeting. He had prepared properly. He had read the 300-page PPP guide. Then the meeting started. Availability payments. DSCR. Relief Events. Compensation Events. Senior debt. Subordinated debt. After twenty minutes, he whispered to the person next to him: “Is there a glossary?” “Yes,” the colleague replied. “It’s 68 pages.” Welcome to PPP. I was not that junior this time… but trust me… I could have been… An industry that sometimes needs 68 pages,...
8 days ago • 1 min read
In 1991, researchers at Cambridge had a supply problem. Coffee. You know how this is… Nothing can get done without a great coffee. The poor scientists trying to save the world walked down several flights of stairs to discover an empty pot. Demand was strong. Storage was inadequate. And the previous users had consumed the strategic reserve. Anyone working in infrastructure should recognise the situation… the pattern… and the claims. So they installed a camera, connected it to their computer...
9 days ago • 1 min read
A German and a Swiss engineer build a bridge… Sounds like the start of a joke. But it is real. It happened in Laufenburg. The two countries used different reference levels for measuring elevation. A 27-centimetre difference. The engineers knew about it. So they corrected it. With the wrong sign. The difference became 54 centimetres. Beautiful. Two countries working together to make one problem twice as big. There’s a lesson here… The pictures are in the internet. If you’re not sure exactly...
10 days ago • 1 min read
